


A flow

by UlsPi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Aromantic, Asexuality, Israel, Jerusalem, Jewish Aziraphale (Good Omens), Jewish Crowley (Good Omens), Judaism, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Queerplatonic Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23270647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlsPi/pseuds/UlsPi
Summary: In hindsight both Crowley and Aziraphale could find endless signs, echoes, premonitions scattered throughout their lives before that particular morning.For now, Crowley sat in a soft chair with a book in Jerusalem's best second hand bookstore and read Maimonides' treatise on the snake bites and their treatment."You're British, aren't you?" Said a soft voice next to him. Crowley looked up and saw the man he knew to be the shop owner."Born here actually.""Of course. Sorry. That was very straightforward of me…""You're British?""Born here too. Family came here a hundred or so years ago. We've had this shop since then."Crowley hummed and looked back into Maimonides."Weren't you the child who came here about twenty years ago and asked my mother for a book about golems? You wanted to build one… was it you? I doubt I could have forgotten your hair. Or eyes." The man blushed. Crowley looked at him gaping.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 36
Collections: Break in Case of Emergency: Fluff and Love





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, I couldn't stay away but I'm afraid from now on it's going to be very, very, very niche, far from the madding crowd, somewhere in a dark corner where I can be invisible... You get it. 
> 
> Betaed and encouraged by natalunasans.

In hindsight both Crowley and Aziraphale could find endless signs, echoes, premonitions scattered throughout their lives before that particular morning.

For now, Crowley sat in a soft chair with a book in Jerusalem's best second hand bookstore and read Maimonides' treatise on the snake bites and their treatment. 

"You're British, aren't you?" Said a soft voice next to him. Crowley looked up and saw the man he knew to be the shop owner.

"Born here actually."

"Of course. Sorry. That was very straightforward of me…"

"You're British?"

"Born here too. Family came here a hundred or so years ago. We've had this shop since then."

Crowley hummed and looked back into Maimonides. 

"Weren't you the child who came here about twenty years ago and asked my mother for a book about golems? You wanted to build one… was it you? I doubt I could have forgotten your hair. Or eyes." The man blushed. Crowley looked at him gaping. 

"And you were playing with the golem you had made. You gave it to me." Crowley said standing up.

"Yes, I did, rather… was foolish of me. I could never make a better one. It helped you to calm down, though. You did throw quite a tantrum."

"Crowley. I did. Yes. How do you remember?"

"Nice to meet you, Crowley. Aziraphale. I remembered now when I saw you, had a kind of a vivid flashback."

"Well, it's contagious then."

"No way. It's early and you're the only customer. I wanted to head out for coffee, so… should I leave you with Rambam or would you like to come with me?"

"I… well… don't know."

"Rambam it is, then."

***

"Do you think I'm… defective?" Crowley asked. 

"No, I don't think so," replied rabbi Leah softly.

"But… everyone talks about it, or… or writes about it, and I don't want any of it." Crowley pulled the blanket up to his nose and closed his eyes.

"I can see you crying anyway, you know that, right?" Rabbi Leah sat on her son's bed. "Boy, you're long. Do these legs ever end?"

"I have a dead eye and coloboma in the other, I'm already not… normal." Crowley sniffed.

"There's no normal. The only thing abnormal is hurting others on purpose. You look like a sheyd, maybe, but I think that's the irony of you being a son of two rabbas."

"I'm an observant sheyd."

"That you are, darling. Anthony Joseph, you are fourteen. You'll see what fits you, we're changeable animals after all, but it doesn't mean that what you're feeling now is something that has to change."

"Talmud approves of sex."

"Talmud approves of love and mutual pleasure. Talmud doesn't specify which way you express it. There is a notable difference between suppressing one's desires and not having any."

"I have desires. I want to… I want to work with plants."

"Wonderful."

"But do you think I'm incapable of love?"

"You love me and Mom, you love your flowers, you love your books, you love swimming and matzo brei. You love the kids you babysit."

"But I'm upset with all of it sometimes."

"Yes, that's why I can tell you're capable of love. Steadfast, unchangeable love is something… unattainable and frankly boring. Even rocks change their shape and form, it's the speed of that change that makes you think differently. You're not defective, Joseph. You're not evil. You have a heart and it's in the right place."

***

His first kiss was in the army. 

His second was on the kibbutz where he worked after the army. 

In both cases he remained unimpressed. He was somewhat pleased to see that his current partner was very much impressed, but he learned that it implied more kissing. 

When one of the young people he worked with tried to skip kissing and go straight for his pants, Crowley began to cry. He loved that boy, he rejoiced in his company, and the boy scolded him when Crowley asked him to stop and decidedly refused to return the attempted favour. Soon after Crowley was mocked by everyone around him. 

He remained on the kibbutz until the end of the month and returned to Jerusalem. He never accepted any invitations and tried to avoid making friends. 

Sometimes he felt a gentle tug on his heart, sweet yearning when he happened to talk to someone and to like the person in front of him. Sometimes they would become a bit closer, but in many cases it led to another painful discussion. Girls tended to be more understanding, so he did manage to become a part of a small group of fellow students. One of them, an American girl, Ana, when she dragged Crowley with her to a party, would tell everyone interested that Crowley was her partner, but then Ana married someone and could no longer play the game. And to think, Crowley had just acquired some taste for parties.

***

"Crowley? Crowley, my dear, wake up!"

Crowley lifted his head off the table and looked around in haze. 

"What's up, angel?"

"Well, you fell asleep on the table. We're lucky you don't pay anything for this apartment, because I keep finding you like this with the lights on."

"You can talk, angel, you read through the night."

"I read with my special night reading light you gave me. Also, unlike you, I don't have to be at the orchard at five in the morning."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm an idiot, I know." Crowley stood up and stretched. Aziraphale looked at him with that lovely expression of his face that made him beam with affection.

"You know the first time I saw you I thought you were a girl."

"I am… a bit." Crowley smiled. "Let's go to sleep. Remind me why I come here all the bloody time?"

"Specifically here you come in order to pet the donkeys and pretend that only you can take a proper sample and because, as the kibbutz agricultural consultant, it only makes sense that you visit the orchard."

"Thank you. I don't pet the donkeys. I… tickle their ears."

"Of course, dear boy. Sleep?"

They walked to the bedroom that had two beds and a single nightstand which Aziraphale had already covered in books: a sweet, comforting arrangement, as was everything about Aziraphale. 

***

He'd come to Aziraphale's shop more often than he strictly needed or could afford. Aziraphale, as it turned out, didn't like selling books that Crowley couldn't afford anyway. They'd talk sometimes and sometimes Crowley would just sit there with a book, and sometimes Crowley loved to look up and see Aziraphale smiling at him. No more offers of coffee were extended, and Crowley liked the uncertainty of it all. He would never extend an offer of his own. If he learned something other than phytopathology, it was that he was born too handsome to be perceived as innocently asking someone out for coffee.

There was a period when he cynically used his looks to try and get what he wanted; which was companionship, silent agreement earned through many shared hours. Crowley thought of a student he sort of mentored who he liked to work with. He even convinced himself that they were getting there, was full of quiet joy when they were stuck in a laboratory together. But then the student tried kissing him and, when Crowley didn’t reciprocate, ended up scolding him. Since Crowley was in his cynical days, or as his mothers put it, his _ Dorian Gray phase, _he made sure their supervisor learned about the student's less than impressive results. Ana laughed, so did her husband. Crowley scowled. 

He was called a sociopath and a heartless person, was deemed arrogant and _ too good for us _. 

"Lost in thought, my dear?" Aziraphale sat primly in front of Crowley. He wiggled a bit to get more comfortable.

"Do you think a person is bad if they don't… fall in love or want sex?"

"No, I think such a person has much more time for reading and dreaming of other things." Aziraphale replied.

"But isn't the ability to love what makes us human?"

"The ability to love, unconditionally, regardless of anything, to love in many different ways might indeed be what makes us human. But it's mostly caring for the weak, the small, the vulnerable that makes us human. It's a remarkable skill of our minds, to do something just because it's right, even when it doesn't benefit us."

"Trees help each other," said Crowley. "Regardless of species."

"Trees are very human, I suppose." Aziraphale smiled.

"Don't mock me."

"I'm not mocking you, dear boy. Far it be from me to deny humanity to a life that's considered too slow to be seen as such."

"But they don't have ethics. Trees."

"How do you know? You don't speak their language… or am I wrong?" Aziraphale leaned forward with a conspiratorial smirk. "You think the animals that leave a wounded member of the pack behind lack empathy? They lack medicine."

"But have you been in love?"

"Oh, numerous times."

"Really?" Crowley was taken aback.

"Sure. My first love was David Bowie. Then came Oscar Wilde. Then Goethe… still Goethe, I'm afraid." Aziraphale smiled. He never stopped smiling when Crowley looked at him. "Oh, and I had such a crush on a fellow student back in my yeshiva days. It was a disaster in more ways than one. Yeshiva, I mean."

"And the man?"

"Oh, the man is very nice. Gabriel. Married a girl his parents chose for him. Last I heard they were expecting their… fifth child."

"And… you're ok with it?" 

"Why wouldn't I be, my dear? I wouldn't want to _ lie _with him even if I had the parts crucial for procreation. I wanted to talk with him… Our silences never seemed pleasant, though. He's a brilliant orator, Gabriel… And each moment of silence, for him, is a wasted opportunity to have and win an argument."

"And nobody called you… heartless?"

"No… I have this peculiar talent to refuse any advances in a way that makes the person feel blessed with my refusal."

"I wish I had a talent like that."

"Your standards must be high, dear boy." Aziraphale nodded pensively.

"I… don't have standards. I like Goethe too."

"That's some very high standards there. Has anyone offended you?"

"No, but I have offended plenty." And before he knew any better, Crowley told Aziraphale about the student, and the kisses, and Ana.

"My poor boy… How limited some people are when it comes to matters of the heart!"

"Probably because the heart has nothing to do with… kissing."

"Yes, I believe lips are more involved." Aziraphale smiled again. "Look, you're a strong young man…"

"So are you."

"Yes, but I'm… soft, and you're all muscle and suppressed anger, so how about you help me to sort a few enormous boxes of books? It will take your mind off of kisses and suchlike."

Crowley helped him and would often return to help some more. Aziraphale offered him a part time job in the shop, which Crowley gladly accepted. Aziraphale set his hours in such a way that Crowley came in the evening, shelved what needed to be shelved, rearranged Aziraphale's favourite books according to his whim (think Devanagari alphabet, backwards) and was paid in books. He found himself flustered when Aziraphale got all covered in book dust and would shoo his friend away immediately.

"I agree, dear boy, the dust looks far more fetching on your black clothes." Aziraphale remarked but didn't go away, standing instead by the ladder Crowley was perched on, and reading aloud. Oftentimes Crowley just sat down on a step and listened to whatever it was Aziraphale chose to read to him. 

Aziraphale would drag him to the Mahane Yehuda market too, and Crowley loved watching people interact with him, the way they smiled when Aziraphale's eyes sparkled as he tasted something new which was kept for him specifically or when he enjoyed _ his usual, right, brother? _or when Crowley had to carry heavy bags from the market back to Aziraphale's flat above the shop.

"I don't sleep well," said Aziraphale once.

"Well, call me when you're in bed, I'll talk you to sleep in no time." Crowley replied, trying to find a place for three kinds of Gouda in Aziraphale's fridge.

"Thank you, my dear… I will."

He did, and this too became their own tradition. 

And then one day Aziraphale stopped Crowley in his tracks and said he wanted to put his hands on Crowley's shoulders.

"Oh… why?" Asked Crowley.

"Something I want to tell you and I want your eyes, if I may."

Crowley put the box he was carrying on the floor and took off his sunglasses.

"Yes?"

Aziraphale nodded and put his soft hands on Crowley's shoulders.

"You are flawless and there's no blemish in you," said Aziraphale and kissed Crowley's cheek. "There. Really needed to do it. You looked too preoccupied today. Thank you for indulging me."

"I… always do, angel."

"Of course. That's one of the reasons you're flawless and there's no blemish in you." Aziraphale smiled brightly. 

"So… we're the same?" Crowley asked.

"No, my dear, we are very different, but that's what's precious about whatever it is we have."

***

"So, you think I should agree? Don't walk away from me, angel, I'm talking." Crowley rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I think you should agree, my dear," Aziraphale replied from the kitchen.

"Why? I won't be able to help you in the shop anymore."

"But you will be able to buy that lovely apartment that you want, and I think it's worth it. You'll live in the most protected place in the world. Next door neighbor with the prime minister…"

Crowley winced.

"Don't wince, I can hear it. It's in your power to vote him out of office, and the place would remain as protected as it is now."

"Well… Live with me."

"What?" Aziraphale appeared in the doorway.

"I said, live with me."

"Crowley, I thought we were the same."

"We are. Just… live with me. I like it when you're around."

"And I need my own space, my dear." Aziraphale looked stern.

"Don't frown at me, angel."

"No, Crowley, living together is not my cup of tea."

"Alright. No pressure." Crowley raised his arms in surrender.

"Well, there is… there is now."

"But… we're friends." Crowley argued.

"We're not, if you ask such things."

"What's so strange about friends living together?" Crowley implored.

"Friends don't live together."

"Don't be so… normative, angel. Whatever we are, we can do anything together. You know I'm not interested in anything other than your company."

"Then we can't… shouldn't… we can't live together. Living together has implications."

"Aziraphale, living with me has no implications!"

"It has. It's what other people think and expect of me."

"Why should you care?"

"Not everyone cherishes the reputation of a heartless handsome bastard."

***

It took one look to diagnose Medjnoon or Fool's disease, Black scorch disease. Crowley didn't like being in the sun, which being ginger made difficult anyway, but he stayed and cured the orchard. He scared the workers into keeping proper sanitation and scared the trees into accepting it. 

He returned to Jerusalem and agreed to the offer which he should have accepted in the first place, regardless of what Aziraphale would say. He bought that apartment on Rambam street. He avoided Aziraphale's shop and ignored his messages and calls, just like he learned to avoid being called heartless and flawed. He walked to his mothers' synagogue on Friday evenings and slept in his old room and went to the services with his mothers on Saturday mornings. He returned to his beautiful apartment in the evening, walked around it and fixed everything that needed fixing, and before long everything needed fixing, so he installed the most modern shower the humanity came up with, and the most modern kitchen any gourmand could have dreamed of and he definitely didn't walk by Aziraphale's bookshop. 

He wrecked his mind thinking of why he might need Aziraphale's help and in the end he found the reason.

"Aziraphale, it's me, we need to talk. I need that book…" Crowley said on the phone. 

Damn them all, Austen and Brontë and the lot, damn them all, writing about romance and sparing no thought to yearning for something different which wasn't so different in the end, because it was, in the core of it, a union of two equals, a companionship, a love affair which nobody would see as such anyway, damn them all to the moon and back, if their opinions, conclusions and judgements meant more than his, Crowley's own bleeding heart.

"Yes, we definitely need to talk," Aziraphale replied.

Crowley came by.

"What's the book?" Crowley asked, half crying. He had given Aziraphale a few options.

"The one… the one you found."

"Oh…"

"Yes, it did arrive."

"Well, I want it. As a souvenir, you know."

Aziraphale nodded and walked upstairs, into his flat and returned with a tartan bag.

"What, that big, angel?" Crowley smirked bleeding inwardly.

"No. It's not a big book, but I want to… want to come live with you."

"Aziraphale… I'm your friend regardless…"

"No, I missed you. I need you and want you and I can't say it to anyone but you."

"Ashamed of me, are you?"

"No. But I can tell you… I love you. Yearn and long for you. The nearness of you… Maybe we're flawed…"

"We're not. You made me realise we're not. What they get in their beds with moans and screams, we get by just being together. We're not superior or better, we're just us, this way, our way. I don't want any other thing than what we have… Yet I will say you're mine and I'm yours. Our way, our side."

"Oh darling… My clever, selfless, beautiful darling."

"Not selfless, angel. Want you with me. There are lace curtains on my windows. There's a fridge that you can put the entire Mahane Yehuda in. There's a room for you and for me and for us together." 


	2. Chapter 2

There were bushes in front of their windows and a flower bed hung under each, mostly geraniums,  _ something you can't kill, angel _ . The colourful flowers, and indeed the lace curtains, nearly pulled Aziraphale back home every morning when he left for the shop. He did stay once, but after Crowley left for work, he grew restless and ended up opening up after all. 

Their apartment wasn't very big, and there were books everywhere, including the kitchen. Crowley would sometimes get very cross when he discovered that none of the books in the kitchen were about cooking. He yelled at Aziraphale for an entire thirty seconds, while Aziraphale looked at him adoringly.

"What's so funny, angel?" Crowley asked.

"Your outbursts tend to be so… wonderfully righteous. I'm afraid I'm going to continue messing up your impeccable order, just to see how your eye glows."

"That's not fucking funny, angel. I can't cook guided by Yehuda Halevi."

"But I definitely want to see you try." 

"Well, then you’re cooking. And I can't be angry with you." Crowley smirked.

"Am I not just the luckiest bastard?" 

"I'm not answering that." Crowley trailed off to the kitchen table which was in the state of perpetual chaos reigned over by his microscope. Aziraphale learned that anything on the table could be touched but the compound light microscope (Crowley called it  _ Bentley _ ) had to remain untouched and unmoved. Shabbat candles were lit on either side of it.

"Isn't it blasphemous?" Aziraphale asked one Friday evening.

"It's not blasphemous, angel, it just stands there where the light is perfect and that same perfect light brings the flames most wonderfully." 

Most of the year the weather allowed them to eat on their terrace anyway. It was a small space next to Crowley's bedroom. They lit candles and antique lamps all over the terrace and sat there until it was too late to ignore the hour.

The winter evenings were spent in Aziraphale's bedroom where the bed was barely visible and all sorts of knickknacks occupied every available flat surface. Crowley found a lovely old round table and a couple of worn out armchairs to put by the window, and in that nook they ate their winter meals. 

During the spring cleaning most of the books returned for a short time into Aziraphale's bedroom. His clothes were stored in Crowley's bedroom where nothing else could fit once Crowley's enormous alcove bed was installed. Sometimes, when Crowley was particularly cranky, Aziraphale joined him there with a trayful of tea and biscuits and they sat in cranky then comfortable silence. Aziraphale was quite addicted to Scrabble and proved invincible. Once comfort defeated crankiness Crowley, never a bitter loser, would suggest a game. Entire days would pass by like that, especially in late November when suddenly it was terribly cold outside and the view did nothing but depress them. The enclosure of Crowley's bed was like that nutshell where the entire universe could be contained safely.

***

The mornings were Aziraphale's favourite time of the day. The street behind the curtains and bushes took on a fuzzy shade of green and gray, everything was quiet, and yet intensely joyous.

"This is what it feels like to look at a seed and know what will grow from it and what could be done to take care of it, and what couldn't be done at all because there's no way to predict everything." Crowley told him once, on a rare morning when he got up before Aziraphale.

He began making coffee, humming his morning prayers. Aziraphale always composed his own prayers and sang them to his own melodies or, if he was feeling playful, setting his conversation with the Almighty to a Gershwin tune.

"I'm grateful, oh Lord of my mothers and fathers, for granting me a night of peaceful sleep. I'm grateful, my Lord, for the means to earn my living and want for nothing. I'm most grateful, oh Lord of the universe, for guiding that cranky skinny man sprawled on his bed towards me. I'm grateful, oh Lord, for my life with him. If it be your will, let us go on together, bring us strength to work and wisdom to rejoice in what we have even on our worst day. Amen."

Aziraphale went on, as the coffee bubbled on the stove. He took vegetables out of the fridge and quickly cut them into salad. There were some leftovers from the salmon they had roasted the night before, so Aziraphale added chunks of the fish into salad. He considered going out to fetch fresh bread from a French bakery nearby, but he felt too warm and cozy to leave the apartment.

Aziraphale sighed and shook his head. Crowley would instantly rush out, had Aziraphale but mentioned he wanted something. Often he did just that and ignored Aziraphale's pleas to change from his pyjamas. 

Sighing again, Aziraphale covered the salad bowl with a plate, turned the stove off and headed out. 

It was a short walk from their building to the bakery and Aziraphale wanted to return as soon as possible. 

Something caught his eye, though, as he was closing the door. He looked closer at the wall. There it was, slow and pensive, not at all proud of its remarkable achievement, a snail. It was almost the same colour as the pink-gray wall. Aziraphale smiled at it, his hand paused in the air as he moved to touch its shell, and he ended up blessing it as a part of the glorious morning world. 

***

Crowley began traveling around the country during the short time he and Aziraphale had fallen out, but it was an obligation now all the same.

"I'm not going anywhere, my dear boy, I'll stay here and wait for you," Aziraphale assured him.

"Sorry, I seem to have my reasons to fear you thinking too much." Crowley replied and curled onto himself even tighter.

"Darling, you're a grown man…"

"And as a grown man, I reserve the right to be grumpy and moody and…"

"You do no such thing. Come, Crowley, let's sit outside a bit, I'll make us cocoa."

Crowley grumped his way from the bed and outside. He fell onto a chair and looked up at Aziraphale.

"Yes, it's much better," replied Aziraphale brightly answering Crowley's wordless question.

"Fine. Fine. Don't make cocoa for me."

They spent the rest of the day tending to the geraniums and went shopping in the evening. Aziraphale wanted something simple and nutritious, so Crowley baked portobello mushrooms stuffed with tomatoes and mozzarella.

"Hardly simple, my dear…" Aziraphale said, a mischievous spark in his eyes.

"Three ingredients. Simple," replied Crowley and bit off half a mushroom in one go.

"What a barbarian you are, my dear."

"Yes, sure… I'll need to pack." 

Aziraphale loved his routine and his routine implied Crowley would sit with him and they would talk and then they would remain silent. Aziraphale liked holding Crowley's hand as they read, sometimes to each other. Even this routine was new, but far too pleasant to pretend that he needed time adjusting to it.

"Pack?" Was all Aziraphale said. 

He watched Crowley throw his things into a backpack and watched him curse everything when he returned to the terrace with the papers concerning the state of the orchard he was going to look at. 

"How about you drive back the same day, my dear?"

"Can't. I need to see how they work there…" Crowley frowned in concentration. "Looks like rhizosis… interesting. Never seen it here. What am I supposed to do with it… hm… There is nothing that can be done… I should pack Bentley too…"

Crowley walked back inside, then returned with a huge book on date palms' diseases.

"Unknown origin… Hm… I  _ love  _ unknown origin."

"Are you trying to tempt me?" Aziraphale asked finally.

"Tempt you?.." Crowley kept reading. "Self-limiting… self-limiting is good, in terms of management, but in terms of scientific pursuit… Why would I tempt you, angel? And into what? Hm… Nasty pictures."

"Into going with you." 

Crowley raised his head and stared at Aziraphale.

"Why, it was an option?" He asked, somewhat stupidly.

"It definitely is an option now."

"Angel, there will be a small apartment there, with one bed. What will you do on a kibbutz anyway?"

"Walk around. Read. Watch you work. Be pain in the neck."

"Sounds like you, angel…"

"You're a bright young specialist, they should accommodate you, if they ask you to travel."

"Technically, I volunteered to travel, because some handsome bookseller who makes my days brighter and my nights calmer and in general is my best earthly companion, wouldn't trust my judgement when I asked him to live with me. So they asked if I wanted to travel, and I said yes and left my fancy laboratory and the rest is history."

"I'm coming with you, it's settled."

"Angel, I'm not…"

"I want to come with you. I'll miss you, I don't like missing you."

***

His first trip was to a moshav in the middle of Arava. It was far from any towns and the orchard impressed Crowley, mostly because it managed to yield a lot despite deplorable care. It could have been a lovely trip, a good opportunity to learn, Crowley even congratulated himself on concentrating solely on his work, but as he stepped outside after dinner he saw the bleeding sunset, the colours of the sky and the mountains mixed together, orange within red within purple where the darkness was crawling closer. The smell of it, sour and thick, filled his nostrils and made his head spin. The red touched his fingertips and he twitched them. The orange landed on his neck, its touch gentle and wistful. The purple sat on his chest, slipped through the clothes and then the skin and bone and vined around his heart squeezing it.

His first thought was to call Aziraphale and tell him everything about this onslaught of colour, but Aziraphale didn't trust him and most likely didn't want to hear a word about sunsets.  _ Romantics  _ owned sunsets,  _ infatuated  _ young people owned sunsets, but Crowley… 

He straightened up and looked at the sun with love and defiance. Crowley cured date palms, Crowley didn't need to tame nature but he worked hard to understand it and order his work around it. Crowley knew about bacteria and fungi that plighted the palms and he studied them with respect extended towards a powerful enemy that mustn't be underestimated. Crowley was a part of this sunset, he knew its colours by shades and shape and smell and touch. Was he, proud and clever, to cower before people who could only see things their own way and no other way at all? Couldn't he enjoy the sunset and look at his companion and see that same awe reflected in his companion's eyes? Couldn't he take his companion's hand to steer him gently home, to share food and wine and warmth and roof? Was it so unheard of? Was it only meant for those who had butterflies in their stomachs? This heavy, impossibly heavy yearning for his friend, didn't it deserve the same privileges that yearning for a lover might grant him? The love that was erotic, that tore and tortured, that m

would sell well regardless of how well it was written, that love Crowley didn't know and wasn't remotely interested in. But the love of a friend, the love that was calm and quiet and brought Crowley the best days of his life, the love that made him more curious, made him better; that love Crowley knew very well. Since it was, as he felt it, comforting and nourishing, he felt its loss with the same intensity that lovers mourned each other. The lovers mourned their hearts, the loss of touch or possibility to be together, and Crowley mourned his mind, the way his thoughts stirred when he spoke with Aziraphale, the freedom and easiness of their companionship that he foolishly and perhaps greedily wanted to have by his side all the time. 

He turned on his heels and spent the night bent over studies about the black scorch disease.

***

"I can't believe you went with him, Aziraphale," said rabbi Sara and put Aziraphale's plate in front of him.

"That's some sacrifice," rabbi Leah laughed. "Joseph tends to either curl in his sleep or just sprawl all over the place like an octopus with dyspraxia."

"Just imagine what such octopus could achieve with good physiotherapy," Aziraphale smiled and looked at Crowley. 

"He stole the blanket in the middle of the night, so I was huddled in the cold," Crowley said and took a sip of his wine.

"Well… that was cruel." Rabbi Sara frowned.

"He returned it to me when my good behaviour was thus assured."

"Effective," praised rabbi Leah. 

"And it was entirely worth it in the end," said Aziraphale hastily. "The place is beautiful, the library is well stocked and I gained myself a business contract."

"Smug," reproached Crowley.

"Have you met yourself, dear boy?"

"That's a good one," rabbi Sara approved. "Don't steal his blanket, though, please." She added. 

"You should have seen the email he wrote to my bosses." Crowley examined his forkful of pasta. "They were positively terrified and promised to always arrange for two beds."

"And blankets," rabbi Leah laughed looking at her wife.

***

It is the quality of being alone, thought Aziraphale, arranging the books in his bedroom. I love my own time and somehow it's my own even more when that stick insect is next door. How strange it is, to wake up to his presence, both unnoticeable and crucial… They didn't need to share a bed or a bathroom, there were days, admittedly very long ones, when they barely saw each other, but there was that agreement, that rhyming quality to their bond. Aziraphale didn't lose his comfort, he made sure it was guarded. He didn't need to reassure himself of Crowley's presence, he knew he was there. 

The time they spent apart, when Aziraphale refused him, was nonsensical and practically stupid. Nobody talked to him like Crowley did, nobody asked such infuriating, impossible questions.

***

"So, what exactly differentiates us from an asexual romantic relationship?" Asked Aziraphale, deep in thought and wine.

"I don't feel anything romantic toward you, angel. Let's imagine, I fall in love tomorrow. Would you be jealous?" 

"No," Aziraphale shook his head.

"See? And if I do go to an orchard far away on my own, what would you feel?"

"I'll want to talk to you. To know I can turn to you and tell you something… I would be very annoyed to be waiting for you to answer my call or to be unable to look at you when we talk… Romantic couples have that too."

"Yes, but then they also have that part when they think  _ oh, they are so witty, I want to fuck them _ ."

"Alright, and what about asexual romantic relationships?"

"Angel, I don't idealise you. I don't… I'm not trembling with emotion seeing you. Our arrangement is that of the utmost comfort we achieve in each other's company. Spouses sitting on the opposite ends of the room reading silently might be perceived as lacking in affection. I don't feel that. I don't need to cuddle you or to know exactly what it is you are reading. It's a subtle difference, mind you, but a difference all the same. Anyway, what's gotten you all… questioning?"

"I don't know… just a thought. What you're saying is true to me, but might not be true for someone else."

"Nature loves diversity. We're but an evidence of this love."

"Gd loves diversity, you pagan."

"And manifests themselves through nature. The ultimate language of the universe."

"My dear, you're being poetic."

"Alright…" Crowley put his glass down. "So, you know how in poetry artists put romantic feelings into nature's phenomena? Like… where the sea kisses the sky etc?"

"Perhaps." Aziraphale nodded.

"And… and let's look at it differently, angel. Water evaporates from the sea, there are clouds, there are differences in atmospheric pressure that bring winds and suchlike."

"Yes," Aziraphale nodded again.

"There is a connection there, deep and crucial to the functioning of the world in general and agriculture in particular. But it's not because the sky sucks the living breath out of the sea. It's because the world is built on those subtle and unbreakable connections. There is nothing wrong in seeing it as an act of romantic love, but there's enough obvious romance in nature just the same. The courting rituals, for one thing."

Aziraphale hummed pensively.

"Just as you can find any relationship our chief rabbinate considers unnatural in animals, you can find any relationship full stop in nature in general."

"So… I am your sea…" Aziraphale giggled.

"Well, alright. And when you evaporate, I am formed as a cloud… No. You are my sea and I need you to evaporate so that the wind brings your clouds over to me, the orchard. We might be miles apart, and I'll still hear you, will still get your message and fucking rejoice in it."

Aziraphale giggled again.

"Angel, you're drunk."

"I rather am, dear boy."

"Go to bed, angel. I'll do the dishes."

"Aw, you will? You're so sweet."

"Yes, definitely, especially after all the cake we ate."

"It was a lot, indeed. And scrumptious."

"Angel, off you go. Call me if you can't find your bed."

"I'll get into yours," Aziraphale winked.

"Alright, but no stealing and no complaining to my moms about my endless limbs."

"It's not a complaint, dear boy, it's a fact. Your legs are endless."

"Gosh, you are drunk, and terrifyingly unscientific."

Aziraphale giggled again. 

"I'm going to manhandle you into bed, angel!"

"What, without shower?" Aziraphale pouted.

"You can't handle shower, and I bet you're ticklish, so you'll hit your head all the same whether I'm helping you or not."

When Crowley finished the dishes, he found Aziraphale curled on his alcove bed, fully dressed and softly snoring.

"You're ridiculous, angel." He rolled his eyes and spent the night on Aziraphale's bed. He fell off it in the middle of the night but at least no noise disturbed Crowley's sleep other than his own quiet cursing when he climbed back.


End file.
